Robust Multicore Middleware

Current and emerging spaceflight processors are leveraging heterogeneous multicore/co-processor architectures to satisfy the ever increasing onboard processing demands required by planned NASA missions. These architectures can provide increased processing bandwidth, power efficiency, and fault tolerance for onboard processing applications. However, these advantages come at the cost of increased hardware and software complexity. As software development is a major cost driver for missions, this increased complexity has the potential to significantly increase cost for future missions. To address this risk, Troxel Aerospace Industries, Inc. proposes to develop a robust middleware management technology for spacecraft-focused multicore/co-processor architectures. The proposed middleware technology will enable a fault tolerant computing environment that is agnostic to the underlying hardware and is largely transparent to mission applications executing upon the middleware to provide a standardized, intelligent resource, fault, and power management interface.